One of my favorite movies growing up was 'The Princess Bride.' Strange as it may be, my favorite scene was with Carol Kane and Billy Crystal where they found Wesley was only mostly dead. I get a good chuckle when Valerie runs around the cottage screaming, "Humperdink!," at her husband.

I find myself recalling the movie more and more because I hear myself repeating that scene with new clients when they come to me with search engine listings that are mostly dead - only I am saying, "hyperlinks, hyperlinks, hyperlinks!" When I do analysis, one of the things I find over and over is that hyperlinks are not being used to their full potential. So here it is! Your guide to hyperlinks...

1. Put Hyperlinks In Profiles Make sure any descriptions on high profile sites such as business listings, guest blogs, and YouTube have a working hyperlink to your website. You can't assume that just typing www.mywebsite.com is enough. Check, and if you aren't taken anywhere when you click on your website address, go back and add an http:// in front of it.

If you don't do this you are not only losing hits on your own website from the exposure of being on listed on a high profile site, but the SEO benefit of having your link associated with that same high search engine ranked site.

Example: http://www.mywebsite.com

2. Don't Forget Your YouTube Videos Make sure you take advantage of the text box under your video to support your visual content with keyword rich descriptions. Always use an http:// hyperlink - it won't work otherwise.

Why bother? Even if your website address is in the video? Because people are not likely to copy and paste or remember your website address if they have to. If your website is just a click away, you have a real shot at a visit on your website from your YouTube video. The same principle applies to any video publishing site.

Example:

3. How To Make A Hyperlink In A Website Editor Let's get down to basics. If you are adding a description in an HTML editor about your business/website or appropriately sharing your link in a string or blog comment there will most often be a button that looks like an infinity sign.

Remembering what Mama always said... can keep you from going wrong with your online business.

The following is an ongoing compiled list:

1. "Always date a girl with a good reputation." When buying a previously owned URL make sure it has a good reputation, as years of cached links may show up on the search engine that you don't recognize.

4. "There's always more fish in the sea." Watch your ROI, if your efforts to get a prospective client's attention on social media are falling on deaf ears ... or blind eyes, move on. Social media can take up a lot of your time and money - a big picture strategy should go hand-in-hand with focus.

5. "Don't move too fast; take your time to get to know each other." A sudden influx of SEO activity can actually hurt your search engine rankings in the long run. Also, being hasty can allow mistakes to go unnoticed. It is more important to take your time to be accurate and strategic where your website's information and links will be placed.

6. "It's not nice to lead people on." Make sure the links that you post with your content on social media or websites go directly to the page with the information you are talking about. You will lose people along the way in a string of links.

7. "If you like it, put a ring on it." When liking an article by a higher profile company or individual, make sure you comment with something compelling that will result in views to come back around to your website or social media page.

8. "Beauty is skin deep." Your website may be attractive and innovative, but if it is filled with shallow content, grammatical errors and is hard to navigate, the viewer will lose interest and so will the search engines.

9. "Stay away from Lover's Lane." Don't park your website's URL while you are building your website. Sure, you may make a few bucks, but you have no control of what is going to be linked to your parked domain by the registrar. You may have cached links and content that can harm the brand image you are trying to portray once you go live.